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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Complete Streets Bill for Philadelphia!

It's been a busy week for bikes!

We are excited to report that a Complete Streets bill was introduced in Philadelphia's City Council earlier today! On the heels of the bike lane ordinance bill, (for which a compromise was hammered out earlier this week), Councilman Mark Squilla (1st District-South Philly) introduced a bill addressing multiple bike regulatory issues and a Complete Streets policy. The proposed bill does the following:

Prohibits opening a car door in a travel lane unless it is safe to do so;

Prohibits parking in bike lanes.

Make Complete Streets part of the City Code will have the following impact upon the City:

Codifies a Complete Streets Executive Order requiring all agencies, when regarding all transportation and development projects, to give full consideration and accommodation of all users (read: pedestrians and bicyclists as well as drivers);

Administration reports to City Council annually on progress being made toward reaching the goals and objectives of the Complete Streets policy.

We applaud and thank Councilman Squilla for his leadership on making Philadelphia's streets safer for everyone. We anticipate working on some technical amendments with the Councilman, and that a hearing will be held on June 14th. Stay tuned!

The reconstruction of the South Street Bridge is a textbook example of a complete streets project.

1 comments:

I have no problem with taxis or delivery vans loading in the Pine/Spruce bike lanes: the rightmost traffic lane had been used for this purpose before the lanes, and "loading" and "standing" in the legal sense are not "parking". I'll almost give the delivery guy at Pine Street Pizza a grandfathered-in bye, cause he'd blatantly park in the travel lane for years. My bike lane problem-parkers are attendees for that 17th and Spruce Presbyterian Church. I have had so many close calls for doorings from these individuals, even from before the installation of the bike lanes.